Competitions
The first competitions were held in colleges and schools in the USA and then in Europe, with the first World Championships being held in London in 1964. Kurt Baechler of Switzerland and Ted Blake of England were the European pioneers and the first ever televised National Championships were in England in 1958.
Soon after the first World Championships, the inaugural meeting of prominent trampolinists was held in Frankfurt to explore the formation of an International Trampoline Federation. In 1965 in Twickenham, the Federation was formally recognised as the International Governing Body for the sport. By 1969 the first European Championship was held in Paris and Paul Luxon of London was the winner at the age of 18. The ladies winner was Ute Czech from Germany. From that time onwards, European and World Championships have taken place in alternate years - the European in the odd and the World in the even.
At first the Americans dominated the World Championships, but due to many law suits over trampolining, less was allowed in educational institutions and the high level of performance of the Americans went down. The Europeans gradually began to dominate the sport and in recent years athletes from the former Soviet Union have almost completely dominated the sport. Germany, France have been the other strong nations in trampolining and the first four ranking places in World Trampolining would go to USSR, France, Britain and Germany. Although in most countries trampolining started about the same time in the fifties and sixties, some countries have not been able to develop as strongly as the major European countries.
References
Extracted from Bounce 2000 information booklet
David Allen, Brisbane, Queensland Australia
External Link
Detailed history of the trampoline and trampolining from the West View Trampolining Club of Preston UK
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